Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. Listener mail.
Speaker 1: This is Robert Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And
Speaker 1: it's Monday, the day of each week that we read
Speaker 1: back messages from the Stuff to Blow your Mind mail bag.
Speaker 1: If you are a listener to the show and you've
Speaker 1: never gotten in touch before, why not give it a try.
Speaker 1: You can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. Any kind of message is fair game.
Speaker 1: Of course, feedback on recent episodes is always appreciated. If
Speaker 1: you have something interesting to add, if you have thoughts
Speaker 1: about us something we've talked about recently, or if you
Speaker 1: have corrections or updates or anything like that, all fair game.
Speaker 1: Send it to contact at stuff to Blow your Mind
Speaker 1: dot com. But also if you just want to share
Speaker 1: something random that you thought we'd be interested in, or
Speaker 1: just send a friendly message, it's all welcome. Rob. I
Speaker 1: think we should start off with some responses to our
Speaker 1: series on bathing and beliefs about the supposed healing powers
Speaker 1: of immersion in water and various warm mineral springs and
Speaker 1: things like that. Rob, do you do you want to
Speaker 1: start us off reading this message from Fun Sure Fun
Speaker 1: Rides High Folks really enjoyed the episode on the cultures
Speaker 1: around bathing, and I'm looking forward to the rest of
Speaker 1: the series. I thought it would be interesting that fatigue
Speaker 1: was mentioned as something the ancient Romans believe could be
Speaker 1: helped by bathing, as I deal with chronic fatigue and
Speaker 1: always find starting my day with a hot shower boosts
Speaker 1: my energy. I think this is by virtue of relaxing
Speaker 1: my muscles and putting me in a good mood and
Speaker 1: ties in with the idea of the full body experience
Speaker 1: being an important aspect of this episode's topic. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: on that note, I don't I don't have to contend
Speaker 1: with chronic fatigue, but I do find that a nice
Speaker 1: hot shower is definitely a boost, regardless of what part
Speaker 1: of the day I happen to take the shower in, Like,
Speaker 1: sometimes I'll take it first thing in the morning, sometimes later,
Speaker 1: sometimes you know, I'll take two, Sometimes I'll take one
Speaker 1: of the gym, one of the house. That sort of
Speaker 1: thing always like realigns the neurons in my experience. I
Speaker 1: was going to say exactly the same thing even without
Speaker 1: chronic fatigue. I find it is a hot shower is
Speaker 1: kind of a crucial part of my wake up routine.
Speaker 1: If I have to skip it, in a way, I
Speaker 1: kind of feel like I haven't woken up yet long
Speaker 1: end of the day. Yeah, they continue here relating to
Speaker 1: cold water. My strongest experience would be taking part in
Speaker 1: the Christmas Swim, going into the sea on Christmas morning
Speaker 1: with a few hundred others. There is always an intensely
Speaker 1: joyful social atmosphere and much talk of kickstarting the immune system.
Speaker 1: I suspect that therapeutic aspect here is the carthosis of
Speaker 1: collectively doing something that is a bit absurd, and of
Speaker 1: course getting cozy afterwards is very satisfying. Yeah. As we
Speaker 1: discussed in the episodes, While it seems there are some
Speaker 1: isolated cases like chronic lead poisoning where bathing probably does
Speaker 1: have a direct mechanism for healing, in most cases perceived
Speaker 1: health benefits from bathing are more likely psychological, based in
Speaker 1: either the placebo effect or in just you know, relaxation
Speaker 1: and positive effects on mood. Though that's not to discount
Speaker 1: these effects, because psychological benefits can be surprisingly powerful even
Speaker 1: to how you feel in the body. Yeah, the cold tub.
Speaker 1: The cold dip is of course a part of different
Speaker 1: different sauna and spa cultures. I know there's a There's
Speaker 1: Grean sauna that I have gone to in the past
Speaker 1: here in the Atlanta area, and they have they have
Speaker 1: a cold tub amid their hot tubs, and I see
Speaker 1: I would see people do the full immersion in the
Speaker 1: cold tub, and it's it's just too cold for me.
Speaker 1: I think I got down up to my neck in
Speaker 1: at once for maybe half a second, but that's the
Speaker 1: most I could do, too shocking from my system. And
Speaker 1: of course you see various like training videos of athletes
Speaker 1: doing the not only cold bath, but like an ice
Speaker 1: bath as part of their I guess like post workout regime.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I haven't researched that at all to to
Speaker 1: know like if that's something it's helpful with like sore
Speaker 1: muscles and so forth. But if nothing else, it definitely
Speaker 1: looks like they're getting a shock to the system. Okay,
Speaker 1: more from the message. This episode also got me thinking
Speaker 1: about scenes of bathing in Irish folklore stories I've read recently,
Speaker 1: namely Lady Gregory's translations from the early nineteen hundreds. There
Speaker 1: are regular occurrences of heroes being healed miraculously in baths
Speaker 1: with healing herbs. Could this be considered tea and often
Speaker 1: by bathing and broth? Bath and broth. I assume that
Speaker 1: means like a meat broth. Yeah, I'm imagining the feeling now.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit of gelatin clinging to your skin
Speaker 1: all over your body. Well, I mean it's off. And
Speaker 1: I've often seen it recommended that if you have itchy skin,
Speaker 1: you might put some oats in the bath with you.
Speaker 1: So there's a there's a thin line between culinary preparation
Speaker 1: and just a good bath, I guess anyway, the message continues.
Speaker 1: Immediate access to fresh bathing water also seemed important in
Speaker 1: these stories for greeting guests, and a great moment is
Speaker 1: when Kohland arrives somewhere in his godly fury the warp spasm.
Speaker 1: To avoid Kholand's wrath, his host put out three baths
Speaker 1: of cold water to literally quench his anger. When he
Speaker 1: gets into the first bath, all the water is immediately evaporated,
Speaker 1: the second boils over, and finally in the third bath
Speaker 1: he can cool down and relax. Oh man, I don't
Speaker 1: I don't remember encountering this in our past look at
Speaker 1: coholand but I love this. This is almost like a
Speaker 1: Loony Tunes level trying to cool down the hot anger
Speaker 1: of Koholand. Oh, it's also like a warp spasm version
Speaker 1: of the Three Bears. Like the first two beds aren't
Speaker 1: comfortable enough, the last one final works all right, and
Speaker 1: finally they turned a weird house on. Weird House sent
Speaker 1: him a note. Over the last few days, I had
Speaker 1: a bunch of older episodes on for some background listening,
Speaker 1: and during one film about giant fighting robots, a character
Speaker 1: used some kind of medical spray. I think it was
Speaker 1: in Robot Shocks, but it may have been a different
Speaker 1: giant robot picture. Anyway, you were wondering where you had
Speaker 1: seen this medical spray before, thinking perhaps it was in
Speaker 1: a video game. I was pretty sure it was in
Speaker 1: a Metal Gear Solid game, and indeed, after checking the wiki,
Speaker 1: the healing spray item appeared in MGSV but also quote
Speaker 1: resembles the first date spray from the Resident Evil series.
Speaker 1: Now at the end of this email, all I can
Speaker 1: think of is magical healing bath in a can. Thanks
Speaker 1: again for the great episodes, all the best. Well, thank
Speaker 1: you for jan I was definitely thinking of the healing
Speaker 1: spray from Resident Evil when I put this together. I
Speaker 1: think I specifically would have been thinking about Resident Evil
Speaker 1: for I don't know, like a zombie. I say, chunk
Speaker 1: out of your neck, and the way you get better
Speaker 1: is you take an aerosol can and spray yourself. There's
Speaker 1: some goodness. There's some other game that I played or
Speaker 1: replayed recently that in retrospect also had this. Maybe it
Speaker 1: was maybe it was X Calm. I have this vague
Speaker 1: memory of some sort of floating robot coming over and
Speaker 1: like hosing down a character with some sort of a
Speaker 1: spray to heal them up. I feel like it would
Speaker 1: make more sense if what you were being sprayed with
Speaker 1: was like nanobots like the ones from Jason X that
Speaker 1: going in repair all your tissue. I don't know exactly
Speaker 1: how just the regular spray works. It's a disinfectant, I suppose. Yeah.
Speaker 1: All right, onto the next message about the washing of
Speaker 1: the waters. This is from Sean, and this one calls
Speaker 1: back to something we addressed in one of the episodes
Speaker 1: where at one of the warm springs in Ireland where
Speaker 1: there was allegedly a healing property, there was a source
Speaker 1: rob you were talking about that said people would like
Speaker 1: gather up a worm that lived in the spring, and
Speaker 1: the worm would be like in a cloth, and then
Speaker 1: they would rub that cloth on their eyes. And then
Speaker 1: the source also said people didn't leave the cloth hanging
Speaker 1: on a shrub nearby because there wasn't a saint associated
Speaker 1: with the spring. And we were mighty confused by this.
Speaker 1: We were like, wait, is this saying that they didn't
Speaker 1: leave a cloth because like a saint wasn't there to
Speaker 1: make them be altruistic or something. But Sean helps clear
Speaker 1: this up. High in relation to washing of the water's
Speaker 1: Part two, specifically folklore remedies from Ireland, it is tradition
Speaker 1: to leave items, typically cloth, hanging from the local bushes
Speaker 1: or trees at holy wells with the belief that it
Speaker 1: will be blessed by the saint of those waters and
Speaker 1: imbued with some property. The same can be seen of
Speaker 1: trinkets left on top of the site. This can be
Speaker 1: seen to this day amongst the countless wells across our landscape.
Speaker 1: Many also have some ritual in how they are approached
Speaker 1: or utilized. How much of these traditions stem from pagan
Speaker 1: versus strictly Christian practice. I cannot say. I suspect it
Speaker 1: is a syncretism, meaning a blending of different religious traditions,
Speaker 1: as there are pagan myths involving wells as sources of healing.
Speaker 1: This syncretism of older cultural practices can be seen amongst
Speaker 1: our art and stories in insular Christianity. A wider example
Speaker 1: can be seen of this on Saint Bridget's Day, where
Speaker 1: folks leave cloth outside the house to be blessed by her.
Speaker 1: I guess, meaning Saint Bridget. She is one of our
Speaker 1: three national saints, alongside comb Seal. I think that might
Speaker 1: also be known as Columba and Patrick, and typically is
Speaker 1: associated with protection and healing. I'm not so sure what
Speaker 1: the whole idea is regarding application of a worm in
Speaker 1: a soaked cloth onto the eye. A weak argument can
Speaker 1: be made general health improvements could be made from cleaning
Speaker 1: wounds with fresh water sources filtered by the rocks under
Speaker 1: the ground, or potentially the composition of the water having
Speaker 1: some effect, but I'd tend towards placebos. One example in
Speaker 1: which I cannot speak to the veracity of the claim
Speaker 1: involves I'll try to say this to buyer nanialt i e.
Speaker 1: The well at Glenn nanialt It's curative properties are said
Speaker 1: to stop madness again. It appears once or twice in
Speaker 1: general myths and local folklore. The unfaified claim relates to
Speaker 1: low levels of lithium having been identified in the water source,
Speaker 1: which could induce antidepressive or antipsychosis effects over time. We'll
Speaker 1: rob this connects to a note from our last episode
Speaker 1: on the beliefs about healing waters, specifically about so called
Speaker 1: lithium springs or lithium or lithia waters. I think you
Speaker 1: may confirm this. Our conclusions were that actual pharmacological effects
Speaker 1: from lithium springs would be really held back by dosage
Speaker 1: regulation issues. So it seemed fairly doubtful to us that
Speaker 1: people were really getting direct lithium treatment benefits from these
Speaker 1: supposed waters because often, like the lithium level was so
Speaker 1: low that it was like not anywhere close to what
Speaker 1: you would take as an actual medical dose, but even
Speaker 1: if it were higher, it would be unregulated in a
Speaker 1: way that might be dangerous. Yeah, exactly, Like during the
Speaker 1: time period that lithium water was initially really hot, Like
Speaker 1: that was the that was the problem, as people would
Speaker 1: then looked at the water to analyze the water and
Speaker 1: they said, whoa, there's actually little to no lithium in
Speaker 1: this water, so you're nowhere near at therapeutic dose. And
Speaker 1: I also want to again thanks to Sean, because this
Speaker 1: email came in before we did that episode, and so
Speaker 1: this email helped inform our treatment of the Lithia Waters
Speaker 1: segment of those episodes. Ah oh. And then finally Sean
Speaker 1: includes a Gaelic greeting saying regards and a happy Saint
Speaker 1: Patrick's Day to you. Sean. Well, thank you very much
Speaker 1: for the message. All right, we also heard from the
Speaker 1: Nation of Gems. I'm not sure which gym this says,
Speaker 1: if this is a past gem or a new gym,
Speaker 1: but this is not a gym from New Jersey, right right.
Speaker 1: This jem says, Hey, guys, I'm enjoying the Washing of
Speaker 1: the Water series. Rob is a fellow swimmer. Do you
Speaker 1: find the quiet and peacefulness of the water muffling the
Speaker 1: outside world to allow your mind to enter a contemplative
Speaker 1: contemplative state? I enjoy swimming for the physical exercise, but
Speaker 1: part of me enjoys the time I have to reflect
Speaker 1: and muse on what is going on in my day
Speaker 1: to day life. Thanks Jim. Well, that's a that's a
Speaker 1: great question. I may have touch based on this a
Speaker 1: little bit in the past, but I know when I'm swimming,
Speaker 1: I'm generally doing one of two things. Either I'm structuring
Speaker 1: my thoughts so as to keep track of what lane
Speaker 1: I'm on, Like on this lane, I'm only going to
Speaker 1: think about alien and then the second lap, I'm only
Speaker 1: going to think about aliens and then Alien three, etc.
Speaker 1: That seems to work. Or I'll do like a top
Speaker 1: five of something just to do things in chunks of five.
Speaker 1: But other times I will really sort of think structurally
Speaker 1: about about something I'm I'm putting together, like for the
Speaker 1: podcast or whatever, or some kind of like personal project
Speaker 1: or something, and I find that really rewarding. But yeah, so, yeah,
Speaker 1: there is something about the water muffling and so forth.
Speaker 1: There's still a lot to distract one if you let
Speaker 1: it distract you, in my experience, in like a YMCA pool,
Speaker 1: because you can still you can still let these you know,
Speaker 1: negative outside thoughts in you can let yourself get discouraged
Speaker 1: or frustrated with people and situations around you, even in
Speaker 1: the immediate vicinity so it's I don't know. I think
Speaker 1: about the experience of being like a lap swimmer a lot,
Speaker 1: like it's it's a bunch of people literally in their
Speaker 1: own lane, doing their own thing, and uh, and sometimes
Speaker 1: I worry that it's not, you know, it's not social enough,
Speaker 1: Like it's not there should be some sort of like
Speaker 1: built in way that we're communicating with each other instead
Speaker 1: of just doing our own things and and maybe eyeing
Speaker 1: each other less communally, you know. But yeah, I guess
Speaker 1: the water muffling is part of it. Like you're you know,
Speaker 1: you're literally submerging yourself into this, uh, this altered state
Speaker 1: of sensory perception. I think this is why people have
Speaker 1: a lot of thoughts in the shower. Also, it is
Speaker 1: not just that they are for the moment away from
Speaker 1: all their other tasks and devices and media sources and stuff,
Speaker 1: so they're alone with their own thoughts, but it's also
Speaker 1: the I think the noise of the shower, like the
Speaker 1: shower water coming down creates a white noise environment that
Speaker 1: helps you sort of like let your thoughts wander. I
Speaker 1: find that snorkeling can be even more relaxing. Snortling can
Speaker 1: also be like for me anyway, it can be kind
Speaker 1: of like high engagement, especially if I'm snorkeling in a
Speaker 1: place that I haven't been to before. The water is
Speaker 1: really cold. But if I'm like comfortable in a snortling
Speaker 1: environment and there's some interesting stuff to look at, that's
Speaker 1: really nice in my experience because you get that like
Speaker 1: part of it is not only the muffling of the water,
Speaker 1: but also the rhythmic breathing. Your own sound of your
Speaker 1: own breath through the snorkel is really calming in a
Speaker 1: way that you know, rhythmic breathing for lap swimming isn't okay.
Speaker 1: So I think we need to move on to some
Speaker 1: messages in response to our series on whales and Rob,
Speaker 1: You've got to read this first one from Evan because
Speaker 1: I think you are the Star Wars Extended Universe guy
Speaker 1: between us, and this one definitely concerns the outskirts of
Speaker 1: the cannon. Okay, all right, Evan Wright. Then it says, Hi,
Speaker 1: Rob and Joe love the show. Me and my wife
Speaker 1: have been listening for a long time. Keep up the
Speaker 1: amazing work related to the idea of whale barnacle armor.
Speaker 1: I was wondering if anyone else mentioned that Darth Bain,
Speaker 1: who lived about a thousand years before the films, at
Speaker 1: one point chose to allow himself to be covered with orbelisks,
Speaker 1: an insect or crustacean like creature. Joe, are you familiar
Speaker 1: with Darth Bain? Not at all? I assumed you would be. Well,
Speaker 1: it's not a story the Jedi would tell you anyway,
Speaker 1: Heaven continues. Their tough shells provided him with lightsaber and
Speaker 1: blaster proof armor, allowing him to take a purely offensive
Speaker 1: fighting style, as well as pain and a chemical that
Speaker 1: boosted his connection to the dark side, and they mentioned
Speaker 1: his terrifying appearance. It was not without downsides. They shortened
Speaker 1: his life and nearly killed him. While he needed the
Speaker 1: insects remove, he also needed to wear special armor to
Speaker 1: keep them from spreading and covering his face, hands, etc.
Speaker 1: Looking like a monster also limited his ability to appear
Speaker 1: in public and maintain his budding empire. The details can
Speaker 1: be found in the Great Bain Trilogy books by Drew Carpettien,
Speaker 1: which are wonderfully read with exceptional voice acting and sound
Speaker 1: effects in the official audio books as well. Me and
Speaker 1: my wife listen to it on Libby We are a
Speaker 1: Libby household as well. Great way to get your digital
Speaker 1: and audio library books. You could ask about it at
Speaker 1: your local library, as your card number will be needed.
Speaker 1: I attached a few images for fun. Okay, one's an
Speaker 1: illustration and one is a costume at a con or something.
Speaker 1: The illustration we got like a major evil looking bald
Speaker 1: boy who has got some kind of pyramid floating in
Speaker 1: his hand and a red lightsaber. And yes he does
Speaker 1: appear to be encrusted with some kind of gunk, almost
Speaker 1: almost barnacle like in fact. Yeah, this is an interesting
Speaker 1: approach to buio armor, which of course brings to mind
Speaker 1: something from Children of Doone. I don't want to spoil
Speaker 1: anything for anyone out there who hasn't gone that far
Speaker 1: in the Dune series. But as for Darth Baine himself,
Speaker 1: I haven't. I haven't read any of these books, but
Speaker 1: I have run across people saying they're good before, so yeah,
Speaker 1: at some point I might need to check them out.
Speaker 1: I haven't really explored that much from this time period
Speaker 1: of Star Wars lore. Well, thank you, Evan. Okay, we
Speaker 1: got a message from colmb Colms says, hey guys, just
Speaker 1: a quick one liner. Check out this story below good
Speaker 1: timing with the gray whale episodes, and so I put
Speaker 1: together some notes here from Colm's length. This is an
Speaker 1: article in The Guardian by Phoebe weston headline extraordinary sighting
Speaker 1: of Orca with baby pilot whale Astound's scientists. Now, yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of what we discussed in that series was
Speaker 1: about orca's being the main natural pred ors of gray whales,
Speaker 1: and so there would be this migratory journey where the
Speaker 1: gray whale mothers and their calves would be going back
Speaker 1: up north along the western coast of North America, with
Speaker 1: the newborn calves having to be escorted by the mothers
Speaker 1: because the new worn calves are vulnerable to predation by orcas.
Speaker 1: But in this case it's orca parenting behavior. So an
Speaker 1: adult orca appeared to be sort of guiding and protecting
Speaker 1: this little whale from a different species, a pilot whale.
Speaker 1: And this happened near Snifflesness, a peninsula on the western
Speaker 1: side of Iceland, where I have actually been, and that's
Speaker 1: a really cool place, awesome landscape. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's normally like this, but when I was there, the
Speaker 1: wind quite literally almost knocked me off my feet. It
Speaker 1: was the windiest place I've ever been. But anyway, so
Speaker 1: I found that the citation of the scientific paper documenting
Speaker 1: this observation in the orcas, This was by Marie Teresa
Speaker 1: Marucha at All published in the Canadian Journal of Zoology,
Speaker 1: called first account of apparent aloparental care of a long
Speaker 1: finned pilot whale calf by a female killer whale, and
Speaker 1: this was just this year twenty twenty three. To read
Speaker 1: from Phoebe Weston's article in The Guardian, quote, the ship's
Speaker 1: crew initially thought it was a very small killer whale
Speaker 1: calf swimming alongside the orca, but photos later confirmed what
Speaker 1: Muchoks suspected that the female, called Sidis, appeared to be
Speaker 1: looking after a newborn long finned pilot whale and then
Speaker 1: a different quote from the article, Although this is the
Speaker 1: first time this behavior called interspecific alo parenting, has been
Speaker 1: observed in orcas, it has been seen in other cetacean species.
Speaker 1: Short beaked common dolphins, common bottle noses, Indian Ocean humpbacks
Speaker 1: and Indo Pacific humpbacks have all been observed looking after
Speaker 1: the young of other species. Well, that is very interesting
Speaker 1: also definitely a different side to see after thinking about
Speaker 1: the predatory capacity of the Orcas almost exclusively for several
Speaker 1: episodes there. It's very interesting and not to anthropomorphize too much,
Speaker 1: but I will say heartwarming. Yeah, I think if nothing else,
Speaker 1: it does just remind us that orcas are complex creatures,
Speaker 1: intelligent creatures with a lot going on, and that we
Speaker 1: shouldn't be too quick to dismiss them as one thing
Speaker 1: or another. Oh but hey, one more quick response to
Speaker 1: the series we did on whales. We got a message
Speaker 1: from Mike. Mike's message was featured in a previous Listener
Speaker 1: Maile episode. This was the one about Mike had had
Speaker 1: an experience where he was out surfing and he found
Speaker 1: himself directly in the path of it was a baleen whale.
Speaker 1: I think it was a humpback I'm sorry if I
Speaker 1: remember that. Yes, yeah, a humpback whale trying to feed,
Speaker 1: doing like lunge feeding on schools of something maybe small
Speaker 1: fish near the surface, and Mike ended up having a
Speaker 1: profoundly stirring encounter with one of the whale's eyes as
Speaker 1: it sort of gently pushed him out of the way.
Speaker 1: So Mike got in contact to say thanks for reading
Speaker 1: his whale story, and then he added something else just
Speaker 1: to summarize. He said his work involves some connection to
Speaker 1: generative AI, so he made some images. He attached, first
Speaker 1: of all, an image based on a description of his
Speaker 1: encounter with the Humpbacks, and of that image, Mike says,
Speaker 1: it fails to capture the burning intellect of the whale,
Speaker 1: but accurately captures the chaos and surreal surreality of the experience.
Speaker 1: And it shows a kind of strange, sort of glyph
Speaker 1: faced human underneath a whale that's breaching the surface, as
Speaker 1: there are fish all throughout the sky, sort of exploding
Speaker 1: from the water's surface. There. Yeah, these were neat to
Speaker 1: scroll through. But then the second thing is so that
Speaker 1: was his encounter. He also had He also generated a
Speaker 1: bunch of images for movie posters for a film concept
Speaker 1: that is not a real movie. It's one mic dreamed
Speaker 1: up and that concept is scanner whales. That's that's very good.
Speaker 1: M M. Yeah, there might be something too that The
Speaker 1: scanner whale poster is of a very seventies look. I
Speaker 1: really like them. And one of them shows what appears
Speaker 1: to be like a whale with a sort of X
Speaker 1: ray image where you're looking at I guess it's skeleton,
Speaker 1: but it's not a whale skeleton. It looks like sort
Speaker 1: of a combination of a whale skeleton with like a
Speaker 1: deflated basketball, or maybe like a card that's been in
Speaker 1: a in an accident and it's all crunched up. It's
Speaker 1: it's very interesting. M Yeah, I could imagine this sort
Speaker 1: of thing fitting into that. That that that sort of
Speaker 1: weird period of dolphin and whale based cinema, you know,
Speaker 1: which also kind of has its carkins back to the
Speaker 1: successive Jaws. Are we talking Day of the Dolphin or
Speaker 1: are we talking talking about free Willie? Not so much
Speaker 1: free Willie, thinking more about Day of the Dolphin. Also
Speaker 1: certainly thinking about the nineteen seventy seven film Orca, which
Speaker 1: which we were talking about a little bit when we
Speaker 1: were recording these episodes. Not a movie I recommend anyone watch,
Speaker 1: but I'm a movie that I remember watching part of
Speaker 1: I Think on A and E as a kid, and
Speaker 1: it has some very disturbing scenes in it, started of
Speaker 1: course Richard Harris. Anyway, Mike says, thanks absolutely, love stuff
Speaker 1: to blow your mind. In weird House, looking forward to more,
Speaker 1: all right, speaking a weird House let's go ahead and
Speaker 1: do one last listener mail. This will be a weird
Speaker 1: house related directly from Levi Levi Ride. Hello guys. A
Speaker 1: recent backpacking trip to the Red River Gorge had me
Speaker 1: binging all my podcasts, but I was gleefully surprised to
Speaker 1: listen to your latest Weird House Cinema episode, which is
Speaker 1: quickly becoming my favorite podcast. Growing up, my dad was
Speaker 1: our media curator, and as a result, we watched all
Speaker 1: the great classic sci fi movies, campy westerns, The Twilight Zone, etc.
Speaker 1: Somewhere in the mix was this story that absolutely enthralled
Speaker 1: me as a child, about a man who starts shrinking
Speaker 1: and goes on incredible adventures in his inning. In his
Speaker 1: inbiginning home, I had vivid memories of a tiny man
Speaker 1: fighting off a basement creature with a needle spear, but
Speaker 1: I always assumed this was an episode of The Twilight Zone.
Speaker 1: Over the years, whenever I thought about it, I would
Speaker 1: pull out my box set of the show and try
Speaker 1: to find that lost episode, to no avail. Just last week,
Speaker 1: a video from the YouTube channel Corridor Crew pulled a
Speaker 1: scene from a movie to react to, and lo and behold,
Speaker 1: it was the incredible shrinking man. I was instantly nostalgic
Speaker 1: and so relieved to find the source of those black
Speaker 1: and white memories. So you can likely imagine the sheer
Speaker 1: delight when I discovered that you Fellas had given this
Speaker 1: movie the weird House deep dive treatment only days after.
Speaker 1: I was reminded of how much inspired me as a boy.
Speaker 1: Also to Joe's comment about wanting to see water portrayed
Speaker 1: as dangerous at miniature scale, another bit of childhood sci
Speaker 1: fi nostalgia finds me recalling a book in the Danny
Speaker 1: Dunn series, Danny Dunn and the Smollifying Machine, in which
Speaker 1: there is a lot of talk about being careful not
Speaker 1: to lean against water droplets for fear of breaking the
Speaker 1: surface tension, falling in and becoming trapped. Wonderful job is
Speaker 1: always wonderful movie. Thanks so much for all your hard work, guys.
Speaker 1: Leavin Oh, thanks Leavitt. That's exactly what I was talking about.
Speaker 1: How I feel like I got to go back and
Speaker 1: read this book. I've never even heard of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just look at what a series of young reader books
Speaker 1: from I'm just judging by the title the cover page,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking seventies or eighties looks like it. There's a
Speaker 1: bunch of I mean, there's a picture of a kid's face.
Speaker 1: He looks a little like alfredy Newman. I don't think
Speaker 1: he's supposed to. And then there is there's like a
Speaker 1: giant grasshopper, and I don't know kids playing all around it. Well,
Speaker 1: I've looked it up. Now. There are fifteen books in
Speaker 1: the Danny Dunn series, and Danny Dunn and the Smollifying
Speaker 1: Machine is actually from nineteen sixty nine, though that cover
Speaker 1: I was looking at, of course, certainly could be from
Speaker 1: subsequent decades. But yeah, this is the whole series. I
Speaker 1: don't know anything about amazing. All right, Well, we're gonna
Speaker 1: go and close things out here, but we'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from everyone out there if you have thoughts on oh, baths,
Speaker 1: swimming whales, smollifying machines, and shrinking movies. If you have
Speaker 1: comments or feedback on past episodes, current episodes, future episodes
Speaker 1: of stuff to blow your mind of the artifact, the
Speaker 1: Monster fact or of course, episodes of Weird House Cinema
Speaker 1: right in, we would love to hear from you. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm sure we mentioned this in our two most recent
Speaker 1: Weird House episodes, but definitely right in about your favorite
Speaker 1: shrink movies. What shrink movies are we missing out on? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there are plenty of great ones. It just
Speaker 1: depends on how small do you want to go. I
Speaker 1: don't know if they're all over top the Simpsons, Treeouse,
Speaker 1: Horror with Lisa and the Tooth, but there's a lot
Speaker 1: of room to explore. Okay, so oh huge, Thanks as
Speaker 1: always to our audio producer J J. Pauseway. If you
Speaker 1: would like to get in touch with us with feedback
Speaker 1: on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic
Speaker 1: for the future, or just to say hello, you can
Speaker 1: email us at contact at stuff to blow your Mind
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